We are grateful to reader Patrick Larkin for forwarding the above picture. Patrick writes: ‘With regard to the recent post of P/M Joe Wilson, Calum Campbell, James Robertson and Farewell to the Creeks, you will be interested to see the above picture of the Drums and Pipes of the Gordon Highlanders taken in Celle, West Germany, in 1960. ‘The pipe major on the right of the picture is Calum Campbell. To…

Chairman of the RSPBA, John Hughes, has asked all band secretaries to write to their MSPs urging them get Scotland’s devolved administration to loosen the rules governing musicians practising together. Practices for all woodwind and brass instruments are allowed in England, Wales and Northern Ireland but not Scotland. The concern is that the pipes could blast an aerosol of infectious particles into the air. Recent studies have shown that this…

Today is the celebration of VJ Day, Victory over Japan Day, in the UK. To mark the occasion a piper played When the Battle’s O’er on board HMS Belfast now moored on the Thames in London but a ship that formed part of the Royal Navy’s Pacific fleet in WW2. The national celebrations were led by HRH The Prince of Wales at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. Pipers might…

By Robert Wallace A new edition of Seumas MacNeill’s seminal work ‘Piobaireachd – Classical Music of the Highland Bagpipe’ has been published by the Piobaireachd Society. The book first appeared in 1968 to accompany a radio series presented by Seumas, original publisher and copyright holder, the BBC. Out of print, permission to re-issue has been granted to the Society. Seumas was, for 30 years plus, its Hon. Secretary. In summing…

By Ken Rogers, Calgary I have been following the recent correspondence regarding P/M James Robertson of Banff’s tune, Farewell to the Creeks, and I managed to find correspondence I had with his pupil Joe Wilson. I met Joe when he was my instructor at the College of Piping in 2005. Subsequently I kept up correspondence with him for a time and was distraught to learn of his passing in 2010….